NSW by-elections: Polling game of win one, lose one, with insurance on the side

Property prices are booming along the coastal fringes of Bega bringing a left-leaning perspective to the region’s once conservative outlook.

Former Bega MP Andrew Constance. Picture: Martin Rainer Helmreich

Property prices are booming along the coastal fringes of Bega, a haven of retirement living where wealthy newcomers, mainly from capital cities, have swelled the local population, bringing a left-leaning perspective to the region’s once conservative outlook.

The result has seen a gradual erosion in support for the Liberal Party over the past decade, according to political observers, who say there are growing doubts over the NSW government’s ability to retain the seat at a by-election on February 12. “The situation in Bega is that it has been getting worse for the government, progressively, over the past 20 years,” said a senior Liberal strategist. “As the population has grown, a lot of the people moving there have been people from Canberra, particularly retired public servants. They generally vote Labor.”

Bega is one of four seats in contention during a “Super Saturday” contest. By-elections will also be held in neighbouring Monaro, held by the Nationals, and in the Sydney seats of Strathfield and Willoughby.

But unlike Strathfield, which is already held by Labor, or Willoughby and Monaro, which are almost certain to be retained by the Coalition, the loss of Bega would slide the Perrottet-government further into minority and diminish its authority and ability to enact its legislative agenda.

Polling conducted by the NSW Liberal Party currently shows strong dissatisfaction with the Liberal brand across the Bega electorate, said an official familiar with the data, although they said support for Andrew Constance, the outgoing Liberal MP, remained high. “The Liberal brand is negative but Constance’s brand is positive,” a senior government official told The Australian.

Despite these indications, Labor strategists are cautious about predicting success in Bega, or in Strathfield, the Sydney-based electorate that contains an outsized mixture of foreign-born residents, faiths, and residents from wealthy and working-class backgrounds.

Unlike 2019, when the Liberals expended few resources in the seat, government officials say the party is now “throwing everything” behind its candidate, ­Bridget Sakr, a businesswoman and trauma survivor who lives ­locally and will need the support of the Chinese community, among others, to emerge victorious.

 

Ms Sakr’s chief opponent is Jason Yat-sen Li, a Chinese-Australian who lives outside of the electorate in the suburb of Cremorne, located on the northern side of the harbour bridge. Other candidates, including Elizabeth Farrelly, a former newspaper columnist running as an independent, stand to fracture the Labor vote.

“Chinese votes are critical,” said a Labor insider. “You cement that vote and that’s a quarter of the electorate. It would be an absolute travesty if Labor lost this.”

But exactly how the Chinese community intends to vote on polling day remains complicated, said a second Labor official. In 2019 a large proportion of these voters deserted Labor when footage emerged of Michael Daley, the former opposition leader, telling a pub audience that Sydneysiders were being replaced by “young people from typically Asia with PhDs”.

Whether they are ready to support Labor under Mr Li remains unclear, although at least one Liberal MP assisting with the Strathfield campaign said focusing on ethnicity, and the ethnicity of a candidate, was unhelpful and unscientific. “There’s always a perception that a Chinese candidate will win the Chinese vote. It’s entirely wrong. It’s a real misunderstanding of how the politics works,” they said.

The Liberals similarly face their own potential backlash said a Labor official, pointing to the Morrison government’s rhetoric on Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific ­and swings at December local government elections in areas with high concentrations of Chinese-Australian voters.

If the Strathfield campaign proves unsuccessful and a loss ­occurs in Bega, the Coalition ­government is likely to lean even more heavily on its relationships with independent MPs and ­crossbench parties, with Premier Dominic Perrottet known to have already begun putting in work to reinforce these ­relationships. “This is our insurance policy (in the event that seats are lost),” a government ­official said.